The archive was set up in Chicago in 2008 as a volunteer-run organization by Mallick and co-founder Michelle Caswell. It was moved to Philadelphia in 2012, and Mallick became its first full-time staff member. Caswell, now an assistant professor of archival studies at UCLA, still serves on the board of directors.

The nonprofit archive, on Vine Street near 12th, documents the lives of people in the U.S. who trace their heritage to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and many other South Asian diaspora communities around the world.

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The archive doesn’t seek possession of these materials, but instead digitizes and provides online access to them. It has more than 1,600 documents, photographs and audio files, all accessible online through its website.

Gary Price (gprice@mediasourceinc.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. Before launching INFOdocket, Price and Shirl Kennedy were the founders and senior editors at ResourceShelf and DocuTicker for 10 years. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com, and is currently a contributing editor at Search Engine Land.